Guild Wars 2

Why is there so much discussion on the e-sports scene, but so little discussion on things like:

- Spectate-ability
- Ability to recognize skill in good players
- Simple to play/difficult to master design philosophy
- Ability to follow the ebb and flow of team fights
- Match pacing
- Impact of game mode/lack of interesting pre-game (like a draft)

Anyone who thinks DotA 2 and LoL are balanced hasn’t defined what balance means for them. In GW2, they seem to think it would only be balanced if every class was able to compete, but in MOBAs, you don’t need every hero to be able to compete. Just some subset. Apparently TI witnessed a large number of unique Heroes chosen for various games, but I’ve heard that LoL is generally plagued with a pretty small subset of their total Hero pool showing up in competitive tournaments. Is that balanced, just because you see 20 unique Heroes out of 40, as opposed to maybe only seeing 5 unique GW2 classes out of 9? Plus, competitive balance and casual balance in games like DOTA 2 and LoL are often wildly different, where you have “pub stomp” heroes that don’t see the light of day on competitive matches.

Smoke and mirrors.

You need a game that is watchable, easy to understand, and simple to identify when a player is really blowing it out of the water. Popular MOBAs give you metrics on GPM, K/D/A, and have down-time between fights that give you a breather before you see a big play happen over the span of a few seconds. Or drama develops over the course of 30+ seconds, you watch it develop, then it concludes. There are ways to compare what a pro is doing with what you are doing when you play, and you realize “Wow, that pro is just blasting kitten”.

Contrarily, what constitutes a play in GW2? How do I know that a pro is playing his Necromancer better than I feasibly could? You need to have an understanding of builds to understand nuances in how it might be better. You need to understand inherently what each ability does, analyze when they are used, and understand basically all of the game mechanics to identify an especially good ability use. Most often it’s going to be subtle, the graphic might be obscured by the rest of everything on-screen, and if you’re a new player, you very likely won’t pick up on it.

GW2, from the ground up, just unfortunately isn’t really designed to be a widely popular e-sport. It’s a competitive game, and with tournaments you could qualify it as an e-sport, but it misses a lot of the conventions of the widely popular e-sports by a wide margin. There’s no profession re-balancing you can do to suddenly make a new player understand what he’s seeing in a Conquest style game, as health bars, conditions, and boons are constantly in flux. Learning all of the Heroes in a MOBA might be difficult and a significant barrier of entry, but you often can generally see what abilities do by context clues. You’d need a cheat sheet to look at to try to keep tabs on what’s happening in a GW2 fight.

EDIT – And if they want to avoid comp issues, then they most likely need to just implement a drafting system, even if it’s solely for the team. Talk to your team, decide who plays what class, then you choose which character you have available in that class and play it. None of this “queue as a character” MMO nonsense that creates a layer of matchmaking complexity that can be very difficult to get over, especially with ambiguous at best roles.

Burning being able to stack isn’t why things became unbalanced. Some classes being able to stack too much burning is why things became unbalanced.

IIRC, trebs kill all of the DBs in 1 hit. Why not send multiple people to defend the treb, then snipe out the NPCs?

I can almost guarantee you no one is trying to beat that comp. It may be the easiest to try for a win against lack of coordination/effort, but that doesn’t mean it is unbeatable. Competition evolves by finding the easiest way to win, then finding out how to beat it. If you quit once someone finds the easiest way to win, then you’re selling competition short.

Maybe Stronghold isn’t a really good competitive mode, but at this point I really don’t see how anyone can tell without putting in the effort.

More selective data analysis that basically everyone immediately sees right through.

sephiroth.4217:

but I’m just a casual low ranked player who plays with other scrubs..

If only Conquest were evaluated at the same level of excellence.

I think all of the changes are good for the health of WvW. All of them.

What does anyone care if someone else has Legendary from Stronghold instead of Conquest? If you play exclusively Conquest, does it matter at all?

SlayerSixx.5763:

After all of the hooplah on the forums, you’d expect there to be no longer any doubt about this.

Hooplah on the forums is the result of people realizing they can freely complain about how weak/strong something is without getting lambasted, because a critical mass of other folks have also complained. Then, they can go out and tell anyone who is playing Warrior that the class is terrible and shouldn’t be played, even though someone, somewhere might find a build for it that works.

Any attitude that stunts the growth or evolution of a class/game is one I don’t like. So I push back against it.

There should always be some doubt about everything, so nothing stops being tested. I understand the arguments you are making, but you’re also giving others the ability to AFK out of matches because they see a Warrior, regardless of that Warrior’s map awareness/abilities.

At least one person tried to explain what the cheese was in Stronghold. Apparently once PvPers get a whiff of “cheese”, they refuse to try anything that might stop it. I get that adaptation is hard, but if you’re going to call yourself a competitive PvPer, you shouldn’t quit at the drop of a hat.

Also, people are saying Stronghold teams shouldn’t get Legendary rank, while with the rest of the same breath saying that people are exploiting MMR mechanics to get Legendary. So does Legendary matter to people or not? Or is everyone saying it doesn’t matter while secretly sweating in their desperate attempt to get Legendary and boast that they have it?

SlayerSixx.5763:

Cogbyrn.7283:

SlayerSixx.5763:

Cogbyrn.7283:

God forbid positioning be an aspect of success. Warriors apparently have to stand on points in order to be useful to their team.

In a 1v1 where you’re defending a node…? Yea.

Why are you pigeonholing Warriors into being 1v1 node defense?

There will always be instances where you have to 1v1 an enemy at an objective you can’t exactly kite around. Thief’s saving grace used to be that the enemy had to be spread out more, always leaving a gap for them to quickly rotate into. Thieves CAN still do that, but not so much anymore. Warriors, on the other hand, are useless as soon a bunker or revenant walks up to them. Not really something that needs explaining :/.

If Warrior isn’t the best at 1v1, and you are a Warrior that finds him/herself 1v1ing on an objective, doesn’t that mean you’re doing something wrong? I’m not sure why it is always going to be the case where you’ll be 1v1ing sometimes, on the defensive in this case because we were specifically talking about having to stay on-point instead of hitting someone hard who has to stay on point. Maybe the Warrior is the last man standing in a defensive fight and so you’re in a 1v1 situation, but in that case things are already bad, aren’t they?

And someone else in this very thread said that Warriors might be the best Bunker Busters. But if a Bunker walks up to a Warrior, the Warrior is useless?

It just sounds like people so frequently get stuck on their own ideas and refuse to budge/explore new ones. Then if you don’t share their opinion, you’re apparently missing something/don’t understand.

SlayerSixx.5763:

Cogbyrn.7283:

God forbid positioning be an aspect of success. Warriors apparently have to stand on points in order to be useful to their team.

In a 1v1 where you’re defending a node…? Yea.

Why are you pigeonholing Warriors into being 1v1 node defense?

God forbid positioning be an aspect of success. Warriors apparently have to stand on points in order to be useful to their team.

Leeto.1570:

Lexander.4579:

the best part about the whole stream culture are brainless fanboys making buttcults centered around foul and toxic behavior of their streaming idols

Agree, i think thats the best part about streaming too.

This made me laugh.

Also, I really hope senpai noticed OP, otherwise we’re going to have to watch another episode of this poorly written unrequited love anime.

And everyone always complains about how GW2 is ded game because no one watches streams, but really, I think the game also lacked strong player personalities. People don’t just watch streams to watch a game being played, they watch because they enjoy a particular personality, and those who get openly frustrated are like dramatic reality TV for gamers. If anything, the game needs more people like that to entertain. Especially since it can be difficult to appreciate/follow the progress of a match or skill of a player in many cases in this game (in my opinion, for some classes).

It isn’t like stream viewers are high society, especially once the number hits a certain threshold. It’s all kappas and “notice me” posts anyway. Stream culture isn’t going to change, there’s no reason to be angry because someone else is popular for a reason you might not agree with.

It’s going to be difficult to stay on-topic with the new thread title.

BnS looks like it could be a lot of fun after doing more research/looking at more videos. I’m excited to try it out.

Sure, some people will go play BnS. Some will go play BD. After a few months, some will go back to GW2. The beauty of GW2 is that it has no subscription. You just come and go as you please, which I’ve done since release.

The bandwagon train has been claiming WoW will die because of <next AAA MMO> for going on 10+ years. It’s their job to try to tell you that your game is going to die, though I don’t know why any of them have personal investment in what you find fun. I guess they just feel like everyone has to not enjoy what they don’t enjoy, otherwise they don’t feel justified. Oh well.

@Schurge: You aren’t wrong. And it’ll be the same crowd who vocalizes on those game forums that the game is terrible, all the skilled players have left, and that <next big game> will surely kill it. Eternal recurrence, etc.

Anyone who agrees that conditions are too strong is being sincere. Anyone who disagrees has an agenda. Great way to keep a healthy conversation going.

Also,

Supreme.3164:

Well…you could always try to run one of these condiclear builds…then try to team fight with it gl doing that. The game is about teamplay and selfish condi removal bring nothing to the table , because you’ll die anyway once focused by 2-3 condi spammers.
At this point I’d be happy if they’d nerf condi rev which is the major cause of congestion on the point

1. “Good luck trying to teamfight with a team cleanse build”, then immediately claiming selfish condis make you die to 2-3 condi spammers anyway. Wouldn’t the team cleanse build operate to counter 2-3 condi spammers, because you have multiple people covering for condis? That’s the point of it. Why would a team cleanse build be impossible to team fight with in a situation where it’s specifically supposed to be used?

Or are you saying that team cleansing isn’t all that useful because no one is bringing 2-3 condi spammers? I don’t really know what you’re saying but it doesn’t make sense.

2. So the problem is really Condi Rev. You don’t have a problem with conditions, you have a problem with a Condi Rev’s ability to deal too much damage too effectively. Alright, fine. Just, say that. The difference between a mechanic and a class is, for example, if Backstab did 15k damage, I would say “Hey, Backstab seems like it does too much damage” instead of “Hey, direct damage seems too strong, it should really be nerfed hard across the board”. I’m clearly not making a statement about the current state of Backstab, but you don’t blame an entire system for its expression in a single class build. That’s ridiculous.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Cogbyrn.7283:

I can’t help but love that, when people bring up conditions in complaint, others bring up cleansing, and cleansing is scoffed at like builds can’t afford to bring it. There also seems to be this notion that condition application is completely unavoidable. I’m not sure I’ve seen anything like the condi complaints in all the years I’ve been playing MMOs.

Truthfully, if you treat it properly, most condition builds can be taken on with barely any cleansing at all. This does require recognizing which are the heavy-hitting skills and avoiding those, just like with Power builds, though. Unlike with Power builds, there’s not a giant number when you get hit to say “Yeah that? That you probably should have blocked.”

Which leads to people thinking they can’t be avoided, since they never bother to learn what they should be avoiding.

Yep. I’ll never forget the lesson I was taught when I investigated conditions myself. I felt that irritation at them, so I looked into how much damage each skill was doing in applying the conditions, and I found out that actually, they aren’t that bad.

Hit someone for 6k damage 3 times in a row with a 3/4th second cast time attack, and you should have blocked/dodged/etc. the animation. Put the same animation and cast time on an ability that does 6k damage over 6 seconds, and after 3 applications when they are taking 3k damage/sec, the target would come to the forum and complain about the condi burst meta.

If you have to keep adding new shinies to use in PvP, then I think they need to do something about their PvP, because the PvP itself isn’t keeping people interested. Adding more new shinies is just a shallow way to generate longevity, especially in PvP. At least in PvE new content is a real concern, because there’s a finite end to the challenge.

I can’t help but love that, when people bring up conditions in complaint, others bring up cleansing, and cleansing is scoffed at like builds can’t afford to bring it. There also seems to be this notion that condition application is completely unavoidable. I’m not sure I’ve seen anything like the condi complaints in all the years I’ve been playing MMOs.

Terrorsquad.4802:

Cogbyrn.7283:

Terrorsquad.4802:

Cogbyrn.7283:

Terrorsquad.4802:

Cogbyrn.7283:

So how much of a pay-to-win RNG-crafting grind-fest is BnS going to be? 1v1 competition goes out the window when you introduce gear as an important factor in fights.

1. its not p2w
2. gear does NOT matter in PvP, only your level does (because you need your skill points to put in tree, so its suggested to be lv45, which is cap for now)
3. it has very awesome 1v1/3v3 arenas

What are all the benefits from the NCStore/Premium membership tiers? And how long does it take to get to level cap?

1. All the benefits are a bit much to explain but in big lines: less meditation duration (which is same as GW2 selfrez when downed), less cd on big teleport, less cd on sprint (you cant sprint in pvp once in combat so no p2w), more character slots, …
2. Reaching level cap takes about 3-7 days tops, depening how much you play. While doing it, you’ll automatically get your gear you need, which you can upgrade yourself by playing and put drops into the wep.

I always meant to play BnS when it released, so that hasn’t changed. But I’m still skeptical. I can only assume “drops into the wep” is PvE only thing, and if “drop” is some sort of gem/upgrade slot, I can also only assume that as you put more in, your chance of failure increases, and failure once removes all “drops” from a weap. Or something equally time-wastey.

I could be wrong. I’ll be trying the game regardless. But it won’t be killing GW2.

You are wrong indeed.
Basically what you’ll be putting into your Main Weapon are other weapons you dropped from mobs etc. By doing so your Weapon will slowly level up. Success rate is always 100%; it just goes slower the higher the level is. Every 5th level you’ll need a specific item to go through 10th level. Starting at the 10th level you’ll need another specific weapon (which are easily obtainable from dungeons/vendors) to upgrade your weapon into another weapon (only every 10 levels). And it goes on like that..

And yes, its a PvE only thing as stats in PvP does not matter, like GW2. Only your level does for your skilltree points.

However, if you’re not yet lv 45, you won’t be paired vs lv45 either

Thanks for all the info, I looked at some articles about the game as well and really hope that the design is as you say/it seems. I’m looking forward to exploring a new game, and my disappointment in TERA still lingers.

I thought throws were specifically designed to engage during blocks to create openings. I don’t see what value it adds in Guild Wars 2.

If you can throw people off of points, then the game would probably just be Throw Wars 2. That could work, but it sounds like a different, completely new game.

Comp for condi cleanse again, like when condis weren’t much of an issue.

Unless you want to forget about speccing condi cleanse while also not having to worry about condis. That doesn’t seem like healthy design direction though.

davidiven.9408:

pvp in BNS is only good at 1v1, in large scale it’s just a mess and this game is very ping dependent, if u want to compete at high level your ping must < 70 at least, best is < 50

I’m not sure they will introduce the pvp balance mode (no gear) when it’s released, if they dont … well, you need to grind very much for your gear to be able to compete.

There’s the full story. I don’t know why they wouldn’t release a PvP Balance Mode. But if they don’t, it’ll probably be yet another disappointing gear-chase game that could have been fun.

Terrorsquad.4802:

Cogbyrn.7283:

Terrorsquad.4802:

Cogbyrn.7283:

So how much of a pay-to-win RNG-crafting grind-fest is BnS going to be? 1v1 competition goes out the window when you introduce gear as an important factor in fights.

1. its not p2w
2. gear does NOT matter in PvP, only your level does (because you need your skill points to put in tree, so its suggested to be lv45, which is cap for now)
3. it has very awesome 1v1/3v3 arenas

What are all the benefits from the NCStore/Premium membership tiers? And how long does it take to get to level cap?

1. All the benefits are a bit much to explain but in big lines: less meditation duration (which is same as GW2 selfrez when downed), less cd on big teleport, less cd on sprint (you cant sprint in pvp once in combat so no p2w), more character slots, …
2. Reaching level cap takes about 3-7 days tops, depening how much you play. While doing it, you’ll automatically get your gear you need, which you can upgrade yourself by playing and put drops into the wep.

I always meant to play BnS when it released, so that hasn’t changed. But I’m still skeptical. I can only assume “drops into the wep” is PvE only thing, and if “drop” is some sort of gem/upgrade slot, I can also only assume that as you put more in, your chance of failure increases, and failure once removes all “drops” from a weap. Or something equally time-wastey.

I could be wrong. I’ll be trying the game regardless. But it won’t be killing GW2.

Terrorsquad.4802:

Cogbyrn.7283:

So how much of a pay-to-win RNG-crafting grind-fest is BnS going to be? 1v1 competition goes out the window when you introduce gear as an important factor in fights.

1. its not p2w
2. gear does NOT matter in PvP, only your level does (because you need your skill points to put in tree, so its suggested to be lv45, which is cap for now)
3. it has very awesome 1v1/3v3 arenas

What are all the benefits from the NCStore/Premium membership tiers? And how long does it take to get to level cap?

So how much of a pay-to-win RNG-crafting grind-fest is BnS going to be? 1v1 competition goes out the window when you introduce gear as an important factor in fights.

Cecilia.5179:

Cogbyrn.7283:

I think I might be the only one who thinks diversity is an overrated and unnecessary concept. I’d take balance any day, and trying to fit a bunch more builds into “viability” for a class, when two classes are considered (whether it’s 100% true, that’s an exercise for the reader) to be garbage in competitive sPvP, seems like a tall and inviable order.

If every class had 1 build that fit in competition, that would be a good start.

I can see where you’re coming from. It is definitely important for every class to have at least one viable role in each game mode, but it gets really boring when that role can only be filled by a single build that is copy-pasted endlessly.
Take condition Reaper as an example. Most Reapers use Spite/Soul Reaping/Reaper. However, even though Curses is currently inferior in many ways to Spite, running it over Spite can help you surprise foes that expect the copy paste build. Of course, this would be infinitely more true if Curses was strong enough to legitimately compete with Spite. It’s also just more fun in general to see two different kind of condition Reapers that both can demand different gear and playstyle than seeing every condi Reaper running the same spec.

That’s my issue with balance attempts these days, and arguments for balance. People want diversity almost solely because of their personal need to change things constantly in order to maintain entertainment. No one seems to get their entertainment from the act of fighting players and how dynamic and interesting that interaction can be. Enemy players are, for most intents and purposes, just unique AI to people. You queue, a bunch of random names/faces show up, you do what you always do against them, the match ends, then you re-queue.

That isn’t PvP to me, and it’s probably why I can’t seem to stick with PvP in MMOs anymore beyond looking for small-scale WvW fights against the same roamers. There’s no familiarity, no evolution in gameplay based on how you know your enemy plays. There’s no player interaction depth, and that is completely separate from the game.

If ANet really wanted to balance this game, they would create templates of classes that you could choose and instate a draft mechanism before games, so teams would draft up comps live in front of other teams. If Team A picks DS Tempest, Team B knows to pick something that can help counter DS appropriately, while Team A needs to anticipate that and make sure their choice bears fruit.

But I digress. I’m on a search for depth, and I really wish GW2 provided it. Even Ranked sounds like a silly MMR slog to some rank no one will care about once the season is over. I want the feeling from the days of dedicated FPS servers. I want the feeling from the days of single-server Battlegrounds in WoW. I want to recognize faces and names, I want the opposition to recognize my face/name, and I want an evolving fight.

I really don’t care one lick about diversity.

I think I might be the only one who thinks diversity is an overrated and unnecessary concept. I’d take balance any day, and trying to fit a bunch more builds into “viability” for a class, when two classes are considered (whether it’s 100% true, that’s an exercise for the reader) to be garbage in competitive sPvP, seems like a tall and inviable order.

If every class had 1 build that fit in competition, that would be a good start.

Agemnon.4608:

Cogbyrn.7283:

I don’t know how it happened, but a trolly subject line resulted in some really interesting and insightful posts.

The idea of banning any classes from ranked is the silliest thing I’ve ever heard, so I don’t know how to keep this on-topic other than “no, lol”.

Thanks for the interesting read, other-folks.

In The Secret World years ago there was a blaze bug that gave it way more damage than intended when paired with another ability. Using it was a bannable offense. While I don’t advocate for anything that strong graying out some abilities in rnaked should help with many of the balance problems. You can usually tell who’s going to win just by looking at class composition and that’s a sad sign of gross imbalance.

Actually, if yo can tell who will win by looking at class composition, it sounds like the problem is how you organize players in a game. Maybe there should be a class draft at the beginning of ranked games, where players choose their classes in some alternating fashion. Maybe even their class, trait lines, amulet, and weapons, so you can get a feel for what someone is going to play against it. Then they choose against you, you choose against them, and something dynamic develops.

Otherwise, in a team-game with all kinds of comp variations, sometimes one comp will be stronger than another, and you’re never going to get away from that.

Imagine if professional DOTA 2 players all chose their heroes before the match, then the match-up was unveiled. Sometimes you’d get match-ups that are one-sided. There’s a reason Captain’s Draft is the eSports mode of choice for tournaments.

On the other hand, it’s just a queue and not a tournament, so I don’t know. If you put it to a vote, I bet a majority would rather just slam their games in for maximum rank/minute, as opposed to trying to actually create good games with some sort of pre-match selection system.

I don’t know how it happened, but a trolly subject line resulted in some really interesting and insightful posts.

The idea of banning any classes from ranked is the silliest thing I’ve ever heard, so I don’t know how to keep this on-topic other than “no, lol”.

Thanks for the interesting read, other-folks.

Personally I think they should put Fear in the same category as Daze/Stun and re-balance accordingly. It won’t benefit from Condi Duration, but Terror could burn through all the condi removal/resistance/etc. still, giving Condi Necros an option.

It’s difficult to compare a constant source of low damage to a burst source of higher damage. Without might, I believe Deathly Chill sits around 615 damage/tick on a Carrion build. If you go Terror, are you really just looking for the raw damage from the trait? Or are you looking for timed bursts of condition damage to throw an enemy off?

If you’re looking at the former, then maintaining 615 damage/sec Chill for even just 30 seconds in a fight results in 18450 damage. If you can apply 10 seconds of Fear in a 30 second fight, then, baseline, Terror will have to do 1845 damage/sec. But isn’t is absurd for a condition that CCs to also do that much damage? What happens when you stack Might?

If you’re talking about the latter, Deathly Chill doesn’t enter the equation, because it’s a different ability.

I don’t really think you should be comparing them. If Terror needs a buff, fine. But any amount of high damage while someone is CC’d is going to feel kickback. The damage will need to be balanced with its burst potential, considering it is also an interrupt and a CC, regardless of the fact that as a CC it has the most counters since it is also a condition.

In my opinion, HoT was a wonderful purchase. I am not currently active in the game, but that’s through no fault of the game, really. I’m just terrible at making friends in games, and a large part of an MMO experience is social. Exploring mechanics and playing through some of the content can only take me so far before something else grabs my interest (in this case, my Steam controller enabled Dark Souls, and hoo doggies, this game has me in a vice).

However, they turned Necromancer into what is basically my ideal MMO class. I thought the new PvE areas were interesting and fun to explore. I enjoyed playing a bunch of Stronghold matches immensely in sPvP, learning about what the other classes can do by playing against them, and I even enjoyed exploring the Desert BL, as much as people hated (still hate?) it.

Overall, I regret nothing. Eventually I’ll be playing again, and the greatsword on my Necro’s back is going to put a smile on my face.

NeXeD.3042:

Your tests are so biased its unbelievable.

I’m no longer surprised, based on a few of his other posts elsewhere. The leaps in logic he is able to make are absolutely staggering.

Heck, I still don’t even know what his point is, but apparently it’s proven without a shadow of a doubt. No one could possibly refute him. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain, because with Warrior sword autos vs Warrior greatsword autos, a hybrid weapon using hybrid stat distribution kills a golem faster than a power weapon with power stats.

Ergo, the game is too spammy with conditions, and conditions are too strong.

The reference to WvW roaming was used to illustrate how I understand where the emotion of frustration comes from when fighting the Thief class. WvW solo roaming is a known Thief playground, and has been since forever. I was also the first one to provide constructive criticism, without a hint of suggesting Thieves are OP. I’m not suggesting anything about PvP balance based on WvW experience. If you think I am, please read through my posts and highlight where.

Please. Some reading comprehension. It won’t hurt you to try.

Azukas.1426:

Cogbyrn.7283:

Azukas.1426:

Shiiroi.6035:

And Snow, I see your point, for instance when playing tempest I have no issues with dardevils because I have a lot of AOE. But when playing a ranger it gets really tought to land your skills…

The fact that you have a flying chance in hell vs anyone who’s dumped thousands upon thousands of hours into this game tells me what I need to know.

Sorry but Druids counter thief just like all the other classes in the game.

Suddenly the Daredevil in question has thousands upon thousands of hours in the game? I’m curious how you found that out.

Notice he used the plural form of daredevil?

The only people I find religiously still playing thief are the long term vets of the class who have dumped thousands of hours into the class.

Either way he’s been playing for 2 months only and split between classes in that time. Someone who’s been playing even part time thief for the past 2 years should murder him without batting an eye lash.

You really seem anti thief. What class are you failing to kill thieves on?

You jump to so many conclusions in so few sentences that this post should be framed. I don’t even know where to begin because everything is so everywhere, so I’ll say this:

As a solo Power Necro roamer for years, I know what it’s like to get frustrated fighting Thieves. My ability to empathize with the OP inspired me to post constructively in a thread I knew would receive trolls and flames. The OP has been nothing but responsive to constructive criticism, and is probably out there now striving to be a better player because of it.

So what are you saying again, exactly? Because I think it’s irrelevant, or inflammatory, or unnecessary.

Azukas.1426:

NeXeD.3042:

Azukas.1426:

Crinn.7864:

Azukas.1426:

StAllerdyce.3941:

What is this test trying to prove? That using hybrid stats with a hybrid weapon kills faster than using zerk stats with a hybrid weapon? Seems logical.

I’m sorry but Carrion out performed the power amulet. In fact it performed just as well as zerker until zerker got an extremely good run of crits.

…until it got a good run of crits.

Of course it didn’t, power unlike condi has a RNG chance to perform better, because of this power must therefore be weaker to condi without favorable RNG since otherwise condi would be strictly inferior.

You fail to see that carrion is out performing the power amulets using only bleeds. This is 8-9 stacks of bleeds and only in the viper amulet did we see 12. Guess which had the fastest times?

Now when you look at the OP of this thread it actually supports his statement.

Why don’t you compare a zerk with a GS, against carrion with sword if you really want to do a fair comparison….

Go ahead be my guest. I went with eliminating as many variables as possible.

Seriously though, all you did is prove that, using auto attack with Warrior sword using no traits, you get the highest DPS out of Viper. That’s the only conclusion you can make from your test. You do not include any other information to draw any other conclusions.

Also, you try to claim Carrion isn’t a Power amulet, when it has +900 power. If you want to do some sort of raw condi test, you’d go with something like Rabid. Even then, you would have to try to factor in coefficients on the weapon you choose in particular. Then you’d have to try to make some argument about a real situation in-game with respect to condi application. Instead, you just stop at the fact that Viper’s had the lowest TTK on golems for the one attack on one weapon on one class with a non-build.

I like how people post individual games where they have a bad time and try to use their tiny sample space as proof that there needs to be a change. So you had an unfair match-up once as a solo queuer in an unranked queue, and lost. Is that supposed to be the travesty it is being advertised as? Because it really doesn’t sound that bad to me.

ANet is encouraging nothing. Place the blame where it should be when players hate on Necros for no reason: the players who hate on Necros for no reason.

Also, let us know which sigils/runes you were running. If you prove that you aren’t applying chill, anyone in your group who blames you is a complete idiot and needs to be called out for idiocy.

Azukas.1426:

Shiiroi.6035:

And Snow, I see your point, for instance when playing tempest I have no issues with dardevils because I have a lot of AOE. But when playing a ranger it gets really tought to land your skills…

The fact that you have a flying chance in hell vs anyone who’s dumped thousands upon thousands of hours into this game tells me what I need to know.

Sorry but Druids counter thief just like all the other classes in the game.

Suddenly the Daredevil in question has thousands upon thousands of hours in the game? I’m curious how you found that out.

Morwath.9817:

Dirame.8521
No offense, but it doesn’t matter if you consider them useful or not. Its not matter of opinion or personal preferences.

Its a fact : every single Necro in last Pro League (both EU and NA) used SoV, PS, SotL and SoS for a reason.

So what’s the problem? Necros were more prevalent in that Pro League than in tournaments for a long time now, right? Why aren’t we just thinking “Sweet, we have a place in the competitive meta” instead of “Man I’m tired of playing the build that is finally working at top tier, can’t they make something else work too?”

At least that’s the impression I’m getting. Then again, I think each class having 1 build for the top tier meta is enough.

Morwath.9817:

Dirame.8521:

Morwath.9817:

According to Leeto, Plague Signet should be nerfed.

Why? The only one that might need changing is the one that proc on crit. Apart from that the normal one is pretty balanced as is.

Because it’s so good, you need to run it. Since you’re forced run Plague Signet, you’ve to run Signets of Suffering and if you run SoS, you have to run Signet of Vampirism and Signet of the Locust, which already defines your build…

Sounds like a case of the competitive meta ruts. We have to nerf a good trade-off utility (constantly pulling Cripple/Blind/Chill from teammates can be aggravating for the Necro, but useful for the team, making the timing on the transfer crucial), because a competitive tier Necro feels like his diversity is in jeopardy? The boon converting signet build in general sounds good for an AoE boon-spammy meta, so what’s the problem with having a good role?

Plus, if I recall correctly, it was already nerfed from “all conditions” to "5 conditions’. I might be applying Corrupt Boon’s nerf philosophy to Plague Signet, though, as I’m having difficulty recalling exactly. I’m not sure how else the utility would need to be nerfed. It better not be cast times, because it’s one of the few impactful things I can do without being gated behind a 3/4+ second cast. I want to have at least one fun, instant toy like many of the other classes in the game.

First, you’re going to feel some heat, because the community generally considers Thieves to be in a bad place in the immediate meta, so a large swath of folks will hide behind that fact and never try to get better or find something that works. They’ll use the competitive ESL tournament results as a reason for why they can’t play their class in an Unranked Queue successfully. Best to ignore them.

Second, many of the Thief/Daredevil abilities that evade have windows of opportunity where they aren’t evading, but the animation is still going. For example, the Shortbow evade had a window near the end where you can hit the Thief. If you’re a Ranger, use whatever instants you have, or get a feel for the rhythm of the evasion spam and time an ability to land during the predicted window.

Also, be sure to dodge any Vaults that look like they are going to land (the leap-slam ability). It doesn’t necessarily always land, but the Daredevil can’t spam it too often, because it costs a lot of initiative. I’m not sure what the window is for Vault, but play around with it.

Your best friend is the spam’s predictability. They have ingrained the muscle memory to spam evasions, so that’s what they are going to do. They often won’t know how to not do it, and they aren’t using their abilities to specifically evade yours, so you have that going for you. Just practice up against it and you’ll probably find your windows in time.

And don’t worry about losing/dying. It could be that evasion spam is really good against your build in a 1v1, and that’s OK. It doesn’t necessarily mean it is OP, just strong against your build.

Not putting money into the game is one of the better ways to speak out against a company. However, just because your class isn’t in the pro meta for a little while, you’re calling for some sort of “pledge”?

I bet a reasonable decision would be making <insert OP’s favorite class> the top tier meta class at the expense of <insert any other class>.

Just leave, and send me your gold before you do so. Nothing will stick it to them like abandoning all of your in-game goods and deleting your account.

UmbraNoctis.1907:

Cogbyrn.7283:

There is counter*play*. Cleanse and kite when the Necro is in Reaper Shroud. Keep slows up and simply dodge away from the Shroud #2, or just make sure to dodge Shroud #5. When the Necro isn’t in Shroud, apply burst/damage/focus/etc. Dodge the LF generating abilities, if you feel inclined to keep the Necro out of Shroud, or dodge the highest damage/condi applying abilities if you want to mitigate the damage potential.

And counterbuilding is part of the game. You expect every class spec to be balanced against every class spec in 1v1? Is that what you think this game is about? If you don’t expect that, then it’s necessarily the case that certain builds will be better against certain other builds. That’s the way the cookie crumbles. If you do expect that, then I think you’ve been misinformed.

You are talking as if reapers can’t deal any dmg outside of shroud. Staff has 1200 range, scepter 900. Chill, poison, few bleeds, fear, torment, and even more chill … Everything can be applied without shroud. Doesn’t need high stacks, just some condis to cover the chill. If the take sigil of ice they can apply chill even with autoattacks.
Dodging the LF generating abilities? Such as staff auto and marks? Oh wait, marks generate LF even if you dodge them …
And pvp maps offer plenty obstacles to block ranged attacks so it is often not possible to attack from outside of 600 range …

When the Necro is outside of Shroud, you apply the pressure. Staff’s range is 1200, but its damage is actually not good at all. Go look it up.

What exactly are you doing while the Necro is spending several seconds applying chill, minor poison, some torment, and starting to stack bleeds? Nothing? You aren’t dodging the main condi applicators? You aren’t blocking/blinding? You aren’t applying any pressure whatsoever while the Necro is vulnerable outside of shroud?

Do you think a Condi Necro should not be able to do anything while outside of shroud? You shouldn’t feel like you are in danger at all to condis? Is that it?

Also, I’ve never heard obstacles used as a reason to label one individual class imbalanced. Here I’d thought I’d seen it all.

/15char forum issue

Sorel.4870:

choovanski.5462:

using an unlockable CC when they have the crystal shield up usually gets you the win. they are normally low as hell and you can kill them while they are reeling from the interrupt.

Wow, thank you. Apart from necromancer (and brokenant, of course), what do you have? Slick Shoes sometimes bugs and allows you to CC the revenant, but to avoid wasting my Slick Shoes half the time I would have to use Throw Mine? Should I play Signet of Might on my warrior? Tornado on my ele? Spike Trap on my ranger?

Come on now…

If you feel obligated to counter every single build on every single class with whatever class/build you decide to run, I think you’ve run smack into the issue: your obligation to feel like everything should be able to fight everything.

@Aenaos: As much as you might think you’re crazy, I agree with many of your points.

An eSport, in my opinion, cannot survive simultaneously with the personal attachment that an MMO brings.

Without very easily understandable goals, people will become disinterested. Take a moment to think about how to explain the goals in major sports (basketball, football, soccer, etc.), then try to explain Conquest. You’ll most likely see the issue immediately. Conquest takes multiple sentences to really explain. Most other popular sports require one short sentence to get the idea.

Pacing is also an issue in GW2. Usually fights/plays are the exciting part of games. With nonstop fights and plays that require knowledge of how the game mode tilts, you can’t necessarily intuit something that someone else might know is really, really good for a team in GW2.

Aenaos.8160:

Played quite a few matches last week,and I too felt that conditions are
more powerful than they should be.
They do a lot of damage with the least amount of effort,and they are spammed
and reapplied way too often and easy.
And cleansing them,given all of the above,has become more of a way to delay the
inevitable than a valid counter.

How powerful do you feel they should be? Should you be free to basically ignore them? That’s’ the impression I’m getting.

Why is applying 1 or 2 bleed stacks per cast “less effort” than hitting for 1 – 3k damage? Do you recognize that many of the abilities that apply the most conditions have animations you can dodge, just like Power abilities? Look them up.

Saying cleansing is like delaying the inevitable is like arguing that healing is delaying the inevitable against power damage. But it isn’t even like that. I don’t know what you mean. There’s this perception of futility when someone has chill, 10 bleeds, 4 poisons, and 3 burns on them, but they have absolutely no idea where those conditions came from.

And they think their argument from ignorance is OK.

What intrigues me the most is that ANet’s design around the Reaper is working incredibly as intended: people feeling helpless and unable to escape from the monster chasing them. Whether or not it’s balanced, time will tell. I think coincidental condis are far too easy to apply, but it’s also pretty amazing how few people seem to slot cleanses into their build. I always come prepared with many, but that’s my solo roamer mentality keeping an eye on all of the mechanics, not just hoping someone doesn’t bring one to a particular fight.